HOCKEY

An NCAA committee has rejected a bid to return the Frozen Four to the Arrowhead Pond, Pond General Manager Tim Ryan said Wednesday.

The Pond hosted the Frozen Four--the nickname for the NCAA hockey finals--in 1999, attracting 14,447 to a championship game in which Maine beat New Hampshire.

The Frozen Four had never been held west of the Rocky Mountains before the Pond staged the event last year, and the Division I hockey teams closest to Anaheim play in Alaska and Colorado. For now, Ryan said, the NCAA wants to keep the Frozen Four closer to the hotbeds of college hockey.

“Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, we’ll have the event here again,” Ryan said.